lf old and evil! No, never again I will, as I
used to like doing so much, delude myself into thinking that Siddhartha
was wise! But this one thing I have done well, this I like, this I must
praise, that there is now an end to that hatred against myself, to that
foolish and dreary life! I praise you, Siddhartha, after so many years
of foolishness, you have once again had an idea, have done something,
have heard the bird in your chest singing and have followed it!

Thus he praised himself, found joy in himself, listened curiously to his
stomach, which was rumbling with hunger. He had now, so he felt, in
these recent times and days, completely tasted and spit out, devoured up
to the point of desperation and death, a piece of suffering, a piece of
misery. Like this, it was good. For much longer, he could have stayed
with Kamaswami, made money, wasted money, filled his stomach, and let
his soul die of thirst; for much longer he could have lived in this
soft, well upholstered hell, if this had not happened: the moment of
complete hopelessness and despair, that most extreme moment, when he
hang over the rushing waters and was ready to destroy himself. That he
had felt this despair, this deep disgust, and that he had not succumbed
to it, that the bird, the joyful source and voice in him was still alive
after all, this was why he felt joy, this was why he laughed, this was
why his face was smiling brightly under his hair which had turned gray.

"It is good," he thought, "to get a taste of everything for oneself,
which one needs to know. That lust for the world and riches do not
belong to the good things, I have already learned as a child. I have
known it for a long time, but I have experienced only now. And now I
know it, don't just know it in my memory, but in my eyes, in my heart,
in my stomach. Good for me, to know this!"

For a long time, he pondered his transformation, listened to the bird,
as it sang for joy. Had not this bird died in him, had he not felt its
death? No, something else from within him had died, something which
already for a long time had yearned to die. Was it not this what he
used to intend to kill in his ardent years as a penitent? Was this not
his self, his small, frightened, and proud self, he had wrestled with
for so many years, which had defeated him again and again, which was
back again after every killing, prohibited joy, felt fear? Was it not
this, which today had finally come to i